UT System moving to tighten no-bid contracting rules

Auditors for the University of Texas System and officials of the Austin campus are at something of a standoff regarding the school’s no-bid contracts with a consulting firm. As a result, the UT System is likely to tighten up its rules.

Some background: The auditors concluded in a report released Wednesday that the school created a conflict of interest and violated competitive-bidding requirements when it hired Accenture LLP, the employer of an advisory committee chairman, to work on cost-cutting plans. The university disagrees. This story sketches out the dispute.

UT System regents, meeting at UT-El Paso on Thursday, discussed the underlying issues, which include a kind of built-in tension between the advantages of competitive bidding on the one hand and the need on the other hand for campuses to be able to move quickly in hiring a “best-value” company that it knows and trusts.

“I am loath to centralize procurement,” said Regent Jeffery Hildebrand, adding that “a hybrid solution” for contracting and bidding needs to be crafted.

Regent Alex Cranberg said it’s important to ensure that flexibility is not abused. “It sounds like there may be a need to bolster our procedures a bit,” he said.

Paul Foster, chairman of the regents, agreed: “I think we do need to tighten the procedures and processes.”

The regents took no action on the matter. But Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said he would ask Scott Kelley, the executive vice chancellor for business affairs, to assemble a working group and bring recommendations to the Board of Regents in February for improving the relevant policies.

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